The Amazon Kindle has been in the news a lot recently and has been largely derided, despite being available on ebay for well over the Amazon price. One of the comments that really resonated with me is why do you need to carry so many books around with you? It's not like an album that you dip into on a whim for a few tracks before shooting off to another one. No, you read a book, cover to cover.
But then... once read, a (good) book is something you do want to dip back into. So having your library with you is a good thing. Making it searchable so you can find that passage. Having your annotations (margin notes) to assist you in locating it - also searchable of course. This begins to add real value, like an MP3 player for my music library.
How come no one is talking about this aspect of ebooks? It seems to obvious killer application... and the Kindle has it.
8 comments:
Absolutely agree.
Also, back in the days when I was working as an IT Auditor, regularly travelling around several European countries on a single trip, I would have killed for a gadget that allowed me to carry several books in hand luggage.
Once, when fog-bound in Amsterdam airport for several hours, I had finished the only book I had packed and was so bored I resorted to buying a novel in Dutch together with an english-dutch dictionary. Painful!
Pete
One Device to hold them all, One Device to find them, One Device to carry them all and get lost or broken. Doh! where's the backup?
The abilities to search, and annotate, and carry lots of books are definite plusses. All of these abilities have been available for the last ten years on PDAs, with a variety of e-Book readers. So why do I want Yet Another Handheld Device?
As to the backup issue, you have a couple of options. With the Kindle, you rely on Amazon to provide backup. With a PDA, you get backup by synchronizing with another computer.
I like the idea of annotations, or the ability to virtually highlight quotes from a book.
I'm not sure it's the game changer for me though. It's a nice to have, but not a need to have in my book.
In general I fold over the corner of a page that I found particularly interesting. Now, it would be nice to have that stored somewhere. And it would be easier to a certain degree with the digital format since the physical format can have different versions and thus different page numbers.
Furthermore, I enjoy Advance Readers Copies (ARCs) and they often have subtle (and not so subtle) differences. So, I'm not sure how it would all pan out.
This feature could conceivably be introduced for the individual and also in a social environment on a platform like LibraryThing.
However, on the whole I still think the Amazon Kindle is a flash in the pan based on the macro-issues I discuss on my Used Books Blog.
@mikemj: I know some people who are able to read books on a PDA, but the screen just isn't that great. I agree backup is a big issue, but that doesn't mean the PDA is the right device. I just don't think we have the right device yet.
@used books blog: I read a lot of non-fiction books, psychological, business and technical. I often find passages or phrases that I'd like to be able to refer back to. It's these books and bookmarks that I think (given that I haven't tried it) I will find useful.
I agree with a lot of your comments on why the Kindle isn't right. Price of device, price of books, restrictions on books (DRM) etc. all make the package as it stands unattractive.
However, I stand on the view that an ebook device can add value to books in the way that MP3 players do to music.
The LibraryThing looks very interesting.
to be a 'killer feature' something must have mass market appeal, I think this feature would appeal to a percentage of the market (the same percentage who walk around everywhere organised filofaxes or write regular blogs) but not the mass market.
@Gonzoxl5: you're right, I have denigrated this to a killer feature for me.
Really good post, as I had never thought of any "value add" that such a device could add.
That said, I do not think I would personally find these features useful for fictional books, but I would find them incredibly useful for reference books where you need to refer to subjects or passages from time to time.
From thinking of these devices as useless, you have convinced me to rethink this.
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